Designing and implementing assessment instruments are ongoing challenges for physical educators. The initial design phase includes asking the question, "What do I want the students to know and/or be able to do?" Seemingly, the question is direct and should lead to a concrete answer. In addition to designing assessment instruments, one of the most…

A central part of education reform today is the wide-ranging and unprecedented effort to either revamp existing teacher evaluation systems or develop and implement entirely new systems. High-quality teacher evaluation systems are seen as one lever for improving the teacher workforce and hence the outcomes of students, including high school…

Rupture resistance is a measure of the strength of a soil to withstand an applied stress or resist deformation. In soil survey, during routine soil descriptions, rupture resistance is described for each horizon or layer in the soil profile. The lower portion of the rupture resistance classes are assigned based on rupture between thumb and…

Since the first child care Quality Rating System (QRS) was implemented in Oklahoma 11 years ago (in 1998), 16 additional statewide systems have been launched and numerous states are piloting or developing a QRS (Zaslow, Tout, & Martinez-Beck, forthcoming). As QRS stakeholders across the nation look ahead to the next decade, it is important to take…

In "Holding Accountability to Account: How Scholarship and Experience in Other Fields Inform Exploration of Performance Incentives in Education"--a paper presented at the National Center on Performance Incentives research to policy conference in February--Richard Rothstein, a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute, argues educational…

The handbook for vocational rehabilitation is the result of an effort to review the literature on program evaluation, organize it, and reduce it to usable form. Taking the position that the purposes of program evaluation are to determine what are the best programs and why, to suggest ways to strengthen existing programs, and to suggest new ways to…

The assessment center can be a mechanism for providing a highly sophisticated evaluation of the training effort. The article describes how the training manager can successfully incorporate the assessment center concept into an overall training evaluation strategy. (Author/MW)

Staff development programs and evaluation designs can be improved by applying four principles: (1) Range of evaluation criteria should match range of outcomes; (2) Program outcomes should be concrete and specific to assist in formulation of evaluation criteria; (3) Evaluation design rigor should reflect the program's power; and (4) Evaluation…

The work of eight learning theorists was used to evaluate a proposed adult education/learning experience in an effort to operationalize a system for locating strengths and weaknesses in an instructional system prior to its implementation. Thirty-five implications for adult education were extrapolated from work representing the Behaviorist (B.F.…

Six areas of staff development program evaluation in which participants may be meaningfully involved are: (1) clarification of the program's goals; (2) development of a design for the evaluation study; (3) development of methods for measurement; (4) analysis of information; (5) response to evaluation instruments; and (6) reporting on an evaluation…

Unlike classical experimental evaluation techniques, this evaluation design is intended to accommodate maximum flexibility and a dual purpose: to learn from the program under scrutiny and to help the program in its efforts. The program being evaluated here is the PUSH for Excellence (PUSH-EXCEL) Program whose activities focus on promoting an…

Presents descriptions, advantages, and disadvantages of six needs assessment tools which can be used for continuing education: The simple checklist, the reiterated checklist, the Delphi II assessment, "asking," the matrix assessment, and the pyramid assessment. Emphasis is on the Delphi II technique. (TA)

This handbook, designed as a guide for new evaluators in the Pittsburgh Public Schools, provides an orientation to the "Discrepancy Evaluation Model" and a detailed outline of the administrative procedures necessary to conduct day-to-day activities in the first two stages of program evaluation. Guidelines for use during the first stage of…

Measures of quality are now in widespread use across states as part of quality improvement initiatives. For example, many states are currently using global measures of quality that were first developed for research and practice purposes (such as the Environmental Rating Scales) in their Quality Rating Systems (QRSs). Although global quality…

This paper examines comparative educational program evaluation. Suggested evaluative criteria and evaluation techniques and their weaknesses are discussed. An evaluation formula is proposed, and an example of its operation is provided. (DG)